Varves WG
The Varves Working Group was active under the PAGES umbrella from 2009 to 2015 and is now an endorsed group.
Varves background
Before the Varves Working Group was formed in 2009, it had been around 10 years since the last specific meeting of the "varve community" at the Lammi Biological station in Finland in 1999. Since then, there have been many new publications on varved sediments, some of them describing methodological developments and others forming the basis for the interpretation of climate and environmental change in post-glacial times. In many studies, the varve chronology of lacustrine and marine sediments form a solid basis for dating, not to mention the environmental and climate signal stored in varves and laminae they contain.
The Varves Working Group took the steps forward to gather the varve community together again to summarize what had been accomplished during the previous years and to exchange new ideas and promote their use in global climate reconstructions.
The Varves Working Group (VWG) was formed under the framework of PAGES' Cross-cutting theme 1: Chronology to address a number of topics through workshops and products.
These topics included:
- Methodological developments
- Marine versus lacustrine varves
- Varve chronologies, including quantification of age uncertainties
- Calibration of the climatic and environmental signal
- Database management
- Data processing
- Learning from other annually resolved archives
2020 update
In April 2020, Celia Martin Puertas and Adrian Palmer became the new leaders of the group, replacing Pierre Francus, Antti Ojala, Arndt Schimmelmann, and Bernd Zolitschka. PAGES welcomes the new pair and thanks the previous leaders for all their work.
From the new leaders (April 2020): "After over ten years of sustained work, leadership and development, Pierre, Bernd, Antti and Arndt have decided to step down from the role of running the Varves Working Group. This was announced at INQUA Dublin 2019. The VWG is an amazing achievement instigated by them, gaining the funding through PAGES and providing a focus for the varve community as a whole.
"There are many initiatives they developed including workshops, conference sessions, publications of great importance to the Varve community, the varve publication database, the varve library and supporting ECRs in their varied research. Although it does not quite seem enough, we offer our many sincere thanks for all of their efforts in this regard. Both Celia and I (Adrian) are going to hopefully continue this work and lead the group through the next phase of its incarnation.
"To that end, we are in the process of asking if there are people willing to help in the running of the group. Some have already volunteered after discussions at INQUA 2019, but if there was anyone else who is interested then Celia and I would be happy to hear from you."
Contact details for the new leaders can be accessed here.
2019 update
Interested scientists met during the 20th INQUA Congress in Dublin in July 2019 to discuss future plans for the group. Topics included re-applying for PAGES working group status; workshops and meetings; the database; communication; continuation of the "Varve Library"; and potential new leadership.
Access the official meeting minutes here. There's still the chance to be involved.
Learn more and get involved
The Varves Working Group is still open to every scientist (young or experienced) interested or involved in varves. A mailing list is used to distribute information. To subscribe, click here.
For further information about this group, please contact Adrian Palmer.
Follow the group on Twitter: https://twitter.com/varveswg